I think we are getting a bit off subject. I respect your opinions yerfatma and blarp although I do not agree. Simple fact is Howard was not put on the roster so it makes everything else simply speculation. Why did Bob Bradley decide to use this tournament as a tryout for the MNT? 16 players with less than 10 caps...several that had NO caps. The US was invited to play in this highly competitive tounament to do what? COMPETE! By bringing the squad he did he was mocking the tournament and putting out a substandard team, not exactly why the US was invited. PublicUrinal has the right answer- CONMEBOL should find another team to invite next time, one that will respect the competition and put their best team out on the pitch, not one that takes it lightly or use it as an experiment.
If CONMEBOL is really "upset" by the USMNT selection we sent, they are fools. They knew when they invited us that this was going to happen - the USSF made no secret about this. CONMEBOL knew, and invited us anyway. Everyone talks like it is some kind of "insult" not to send our best team, yet this isn't our regional tournament, it is theirs, and CONMEBOL nations send second string squads to Copa America all the time. Not just Argentina and Brazil, either, but the lower quality nations as well. So why is it somehow a duty of the USA to send its very best and to sacrifice its players for a regional tournament that means nothing to us and gains us nothing if we win it? It would be nice if MLS wasn't playing during Copa America, but it is. Two months is too long for an MLS team to lose a top player. Releasing players for Gold Cup was long enough; we needed to win Gold Cup because it is our regional tournament, and winning it gets us a spot in the Confederations Cup in South Africa in 2009, excellent preparation for World Cup in South Africa in 2010. And the European clubs don't have to release US players for Copa America as it is not our regional tournament. The EPL and other leagues in Europe are not in season, but their club training camps are. We have a lot of players who need to earn starting positions on their clubs, sometimes new clubs (ie, Beasley at Rangers). Spending the entire summer playing international tourneys does not help their careers. We cannot overuse our best players that way; better to give the younger and more inexperienced players a chance. Finally there is the U-20 World Cup going on at the same time right now. This Cup is, frankly, much much much much more important for us than Copa America ever will be. We beat Poland 6-1 the other day and Freddy Adu got a hat trick. These players would also have been wasted had we sent them to Copa America instead. Let them have a shot at winning a title that means something. If CONMEBOL is really upset at us, they can go screw. They spent a decade inviting us, we turned them down for the same reasons that we are now being criticized for; we finally accept, with the same restriction in place on the kind of players we could send that we have always had since MLS started. No one in CONMEBOL should act surprised; they knew exactly what kind of team we were going to send. Let them invite Costa Rica or Honduras again instead, if they are so snippy about "respect". See if that really "improves" their tourney. This is one of those deals where we are screwed no matter what we do. Everyone is primed and ready to take "offense" at what USSF does, no one wants to listen to or consider the problems they have to deal with.
Who is this we you keep speaking of, dave2007?
.....and why is it when non-member nations get invited to play in CONCACAF Gold Cup, and they send their second string teams, it isn't considered an "insult" to CONCACAF? Don't give me that crap about Copa America being a "big, respectable, historical" tourney, because based on that logic, CONMEBOL teams should never be sending their second string teams to Copa America, yet they do that all the time. Does this ever happen in Euro Cup? The double standards here are just ridiculous. If CONMEBOL doesn't want to invite us back in future, that would be fine with me. But I don't want to hear any more hypocritical whining about why we didn't accept CONMEBOL's invivations circa 1996-2006. This is why USSF didn't accept the invites for the past decade; now you know. You didn't believe USSF then. Now you do. Or you should. The USMNT simply does not have the resources to play in three different international tourneys within the space of two months, especially not during the middle of MLS's season. Our national team does not have the depth of talent to pull something like that off. So accept the facts and move on.
"Who is this we you keep speaking of, dave2007?" USSF/USMNT. And fans thereof. It wasn't that difficult to figure out from the context. I don't have the patience to play these games of rhetorical questions.
And before you ask, "you" are "you guys who don't get it". I could add "you know who you are", but, obviously, you don't. Insert simley face here: :-)
Dave- maybe I have been sleeping but what is this third international tournament in the space of two months? If you are speaking of the U-20 Cup, they are not involving the same players. Lets not get ahead of yourself. Only one player (Bradley) was on the U-20 and the Gold Cup squad. The fact is if the USMNT (I didn't say WE since neither one of us actually play on the team) didn't want to compete or felt overburdened than they should have turned down the invitation. It is not like a gun was put to their heads. Finishing 12th out of 12 teams is a great accomplishment, almost as good as when they placed last in the World Cup in 2002. It was painful to watch this team (try to) play soccer. It was disgraceful to me as a fan, player and coach. The "progress" made by the younger players doesn't add up to crap since the majority will grab these caps and never be on the team in the future. There is no way our national pool is so great that we have over 50 quality international players (the amount Bob Bradley has used in his short reign).
Enough of the ball-busting over the use of "we" to mean "the team I support and my fellow fans." Obviously it's imprecise, but do you guys really think that Dave believes himself to be a member of the USMNT? It's common for fans to refer to their favorite teams in this way.
urall, you either didn't read what Dave wrote or are willfully ignoring it.
If Eduardo Deluca and CONMEBOL don't like our lineup he should take a PanAm to Chicago, get a cab to 18th Street and Prairie Avenue, talk with the Federation, and interview for a job. Because the last time I checked, the Manager gets to pick his own 11, and those selections are not always chosen based on overall talent. Is Deluca chastising Dunga for fielding a team that got ran off the pitch by Mexico? Is he calling out Kaka or Ronaldinho for no-shows? Does he fault Argentina for only playing Tevez in stoppage time? Fuck Eduardo Deluca. We were invited(which is why MLS and EPL teams can forbid their players attendance). If they don't like our team, don't send the invite and we will see how many grounds get sold out to watch Uruguay v Chile. He will find out the exclusive tv rights he sold to GOL tv will get cut in half, maybe more. Way too many half-assed US soccer fans in here. Our game against Argentina was terrific. We don't have a finisher and there were some awful substitutions but an overall good performance that got out of hand in the last 10 minutes. We were never gonna beat the Argentines. But that's OK neither will 95% of the planet, nor any team in this tournament. We did however find some fresh blood. Olsen, Conrad (sans 3 seconds of temporary brain loss), Demerit, Feilhaber got a chance to show they should be first 11 possibilities. Bradley's plan was to take 21 kids with virtually no international experience and find 4 or 5 potential starters for 2010. He done that.
Actually Dunga chose both Ronaldinho and Kaka for the Brazil team. They both asked to sit out due to overwork. They both played well over 50 games in the last season alone and have had NO time off since the summer of 2004 when they both had about six weeks of not playing. Even though they were granted permission to take the Copa off Dunga DID chastise them saying the old school Brazilians would play every day of their lives for the team. Tevez not starting is not Argentinas attempt to rest him. He is the third choice in a two forward system. He will start now that Crespo is out. I can see all the points made about the US lack of bringing an A-side. I agree with some points, but call me old school- when you are playing an international match you simply play to win and bring the best ammunition to do so. Training camps are where you try new faces. How about bringing a mixed squad to the Copa. The less experienced players were doomed for failure from the outset. How about mixing in 3-4, maybe even 5 inexperienced players to go along with 6 or 7 regulars? That way at least the younger ones have some stability and leadership on the pitch and we can see how they do with regulars. Danny Califf as USMNT Captain...Enough said!
urall, I understand the Brazilian situation, and didn't say anything contrary to your post regarding it. He is the third choice in a two forward system. That's right, a manager's choice. IMNHO Tevez is the most on-form player on Earth at the moment. He singlehandedly kept the Hammers up. He is in the middle of a bidding war waged among the top teams in all three big-boy football leagues in Europe. He is in a position to turn down a 30 million pound transfer and 100K a week. Yet, his MANAGER has the power to play him behind Crespo - who is on a free transfer. There is no doubt in any thinking person's mind that Carlos Tevez is one of the best 11 footballers in all of Argentina, but it is a managers choice. Only he knows what is best for his team, and he has a plan. Danny Califf as USMNT Captain...Enough said! No, it is not that simple. Training grounds do not show how a person is going to react when down 1-nil on hostile ground. It doesn't show who still has fire after living in a hotel room for 4weeks playing a match every three days. It doesn't show how you will play when the #10 is hurt and your center back just got sent off. Maybe Bradley wanted to know who NOT to take in the future? If that was his objection, he seceded. I doubt Mapp will ever get to suit up for his Country again. After these games he will have a firm grasp of who goes where on a 40 man roster. The US made it very clear that winning the Gold Cup was a priority weeks before Copa AM. We knew all the guys on European teams were gonna opt out of Copa Am or be pulled by their clubs. We knew Landycakes wanted to stay home for the Bex 'globetrotting' tour. Eduardo Deluca is just America Bashing because he can and people will applaud him for it. Until he criticizes obvious errors in the manager's selections of other teams, he should keep his crap-hole shut. And until Bradley losses more games than he wins or shows incompetence, WE as American fans, should give the guy a little slack.
Landycakes wanted to stay home for the Bex 'globetrotting' tour. We may not agree on everything...but that statement alone is PRICELESS! I am starting to soften my disgust now that it is all over and I do not have to watch the substandard team any more. I hope Bradley knows what he is doing and I will give him the benefit of the doubt...for now.
By the way, are any of the rest of you shocked that Jorge Lariondo still has his FIFA referee license after the absolutely disgusting job he did in Germany last summer? I thought I recognized his name during one of the first round matches but tonight he worked Brazil-Chile and, other than all the goals the Sun Kings made, his presence was the most surprising thing.
I presume you mean the US-Italy game. In which case, as FIFA said they thought he'd done a decent job and gave him one of the semi-finals to officiate, I'd have to go with not shocked.
I did, MrB, though not exclusively and FIFA can kiss my red white and blue posterior.
